Biggest Moments on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance Rover 2021 Year in Review
December 29, 2021 | NASA JPLEstimated reading time: 1 minute
NASA’s Perseverance rover has been busy since its harrowing touchdown in Mars’ Jezero Crater this past February.
In the 10 months since, the car-size rover has driven 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometers), set a record for the longest rover drive in a Martian day, taken more than 100,000 images, and collected six samples of Martian rock and atmosphere that could eventually be brought to Earth for further study.
And then there’s NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet with Perseverance: Proving that powered, controlled flight is possible in Mars’ thin atmosphere, the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft has logged 18 flights and counting.
In a new video, Jessica Samuels – the Perseverance surface operations mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California – looks back on a year filled with groundbreaking discoveries. She also explains the next phase of Perseverance’s mission: to explore the delta that formed in Jezero Crater billions of years ago from sediment that an ancient river carried into the lake that once existed in the crater.
“It feels great to be a part of making history and enabling the start of a Mars Sample Return campaign,” said Samuels. “What motivates us as engineers and scientists exploring another planet is the opportunity to learn more.”
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
Suggested Items
Connect the Dots: Best Practices for Prototyping
09/21/2023 | Matt Stevenson -- Column: Connect the DotsPCB prototyping is a critical juncture during an electronic device’s journey from concept to reality. Regardless of a project’s complexity, the process of transforming a design into a working board is often enlightening in terms of how a design can be improved before a PCB is ready for full production.
The Drive Toward UHDI and Substrates
09/20/2023 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamPanasonic’s Darren Hitchcock spoke with the I-Connect007 Editorial Team on the complexities of moving toward ultra HDI manufacturing. As we learn in this conversation, the number of shifting constraints relative to traditional PCB fabrication is quite large and can sometimes conflict with each other.
Asia/Pacific AI Spending Surge to Reach a Projected $78 Billion by 2027
09/19/2023 | IDCAsia/Pacific spending on Artificial Intelligence (AI) ), including software, services, and hardware for AI-centric systems will grow to $78.4 billion in 2027, according to International Data Corporation's latest Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Spending Guide.
Intel to Sell Minority Stake in IMS Nanofabrication Business to TSMC
09/13/2023 | IntelIntel Corporation announced that it has agreed to sell an approximately 10% stake in the IMS Nanofabrication business to TSMC. TSMC’s investment values IMS at approximately $4.3 billion, consistent with the valuation of the recent stake sale to Bain Capital Special Situations.
RAF Invests in BAE Systems’ Most Advanced Fighter Pilot Helmet
09/13/2023 | BAE SystemsThe UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) has awarded BAE Systems a contract to develop its Striker II Helmet Mounted Display (HMD) for the Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoon fleet. The contract, valued at £40m, will create and sustain more than 200 highly-skilled jobs at BAE Systems’ sites in Kent and Lancashire working directly on the Striker II programme. In total, the Typhoon programme sustains more than 20,800 jobs across the UK.